Sharks at Oilers preview

SHARKS (17-10-4) at OILERS (14-17-2)
9 p.m. ET; SNW, NBCSCA, NHL.TV

Oilers defenseman Adam Larsson will return to the lineup for the first time since Nov. 28; he missed eight games with an upper-body injury. Edmonton is looking consecutive wins for the third time this season. They won 3-2 at the Minnesota Wild on Saturday.

Players to watch

Tomas Hertl will center San Jose's second line in place of Couture. Hertl has 18 points (seven goals, 11 assists) in 31 games.
Larsson is Edmonton's best shutdown defenseman. He was acquired in a trade from the New Jersey Devils in exchange for forward Taylor Hall on June 29, 2016. Larsson has four points (three goals, one assist) in 25 games.

They said it

"It's tough. He's obviously a very important player for us and losing a guy like that is definitely going to hurt us. Guys just have to step up. It happens like that in every locker room, important guys go down and different guys step up, so we just have to have the same in here." -- Sharks center Joe Thornton on the injury to Couture
"It's been frustrating sitting out, it took way longer than I thought it would take. It was frustrating times, but I'm glad I'm back now." -- Oilers defenseman Adam Larsson on returning after missing eight games with an upper-body injury

Sharks projected lineup

Melker Karlsson -- Joe Thornton -- Joe Pavelski
Mikkel Boedker -- Tomas Hertl -- Kevin Labanc
Timo Meier -- Chris Tierney -- Joonas Donskoi
Marcus Sorensen
-- Joel Ward -- Jannik Hansen
Brenden Dillon -- Brent Burns
Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun
Dylan DeMelo -- Tim Heed
Martin Jones
Aaron Dell
Scratched: Danny O'Regan](https://www.nhl.com/player/daniel-o-regan-8476982?season=20172018), Joakim Ryan
Injured: Logan Couture (concussion), Barclay Goodrow (lower body)

Oilers projected lineup

Milan Lucic -- Connor McDavid --
Jesse Puljujarvi
Patrick Maroon -- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins -- Drake Caggiula
Jujhar Khaira -- Leon Draisaitl -- Ryan Strome
Nathan Walker -- Mark Letestu -- Zack Kassian
Darnell Nurse -- Kris Russell
Oscar Klefbom -- Matt Benning
Brandon Davidson -- Adam Larsson
Cam Talbot
Laurent Brossoit
Scratched: Eric Gryba, Michael Cammalleri, Yohann Auvitu
Injured: Andrej Sekera (knee)

Status report

Boedker will return after missing seven games with a lower-body injury … Edmonton assigned forward Anton Slepyshev to Bakersfield of the American Hockey League to make room for Larsson, who was activated from injured reserve.

Stat pack

Thornton has six points (one goal, five assists) in his past five games and is one point from tying Doug Gilmour (1,414) for 18th place on the NHL all-time scoring list … McDavid has nine points (two goals, seven assists) in his past seven games.